Wyndham Adds New Loyalty Tiers (Gold, Platinum, Diamond) & Benefits Starting May 18th

Wyndham have been working hard to improve their relevancy in the hotel loyalty space, almost exactly a year ago they introduced their go free award nights (all properties are 15,000 points per night), go fast award nights (cash + points booking) and go get ’em (earn 10x points per $1 spent). View From The Wing is now reporting that they’ve made changes to their loyalty tiers and benefits, these will be introduced on May 18th.

Blue, Gold, Platinum & Diamond Status Levels

Wyndham have introduced four different status levels: Blue, Gold, Platinum & Diamond. The below table gives you a nice overview of what each loyalty tier gives you. Below we will talk about some of the new benefits.

Roll Over Nights

Regardless of your status level, your unused nights rollover to the following year. For example if you have three nights in 2016, then these nights will rollover to 2017 as you didn’t reach gold status. Similarly if you have 10 nights in 2016, then 5 nights will rollover to 2017 (as you needed 5 for gold status and these are ‘used’).

Welcome Amenity (Diamond Only)

Diamond members will receive a welcome amenity at the following brands: Dolce Hotels and Resorts, Wyndham Grand, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Wyndham Garden, TRYP by Wyndham, Wingate by Wyndham, Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham, Ramada and Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham Participating Hotels only.

They say that the welcome amenity will be a snack or beverage, but will vary by hotel. I wouldn’t expect much more than a bottle of water or some fruit to be honest.

Room (Gold & Platinum) & Suite Upgrades (Diamond)

Gold & Platinum members will receive preferred rooms (upon request and availability upon check in). It has to be in the same room type category (e.g if a standard room is booked, the ‘upgrade’ will be to another more desirable standard room). They define preferred rooms as follows: Preferred rooms may include recently renovated rooms, more spacious rooms or rooms with a desired view or location.

Diamond members will receive upgrades to suites (subject to availability) on all Qualified Stays, Go Free Award stays and Go Fast Award stays. They also state the following: “Availability is determined by Participating Hotel at check-in and is only applicable to the Member’s personal guest room. Suites are not available at all Participating Hotels”.

Annual Point Bonus (3,000 For Platinum & 6,000 For Diamond)

Platinum members will receive 3,000 bonus points annually and diamond members will receive 6,000 points annually.

Early Check In (Platinum & Diamond) & Late Check Out (Gold, Platinum & Diamond)

Platinum & Diamond members can check in not two more hours earlier than the hotels standard check in time (pending availability) and Gold, Platinum & Diamond members can check out not two hours later than the hotels standard check out time (pending availability).

Go Free/Go Fast Plus (Blue, Gold, Platinum & Diamond)

On points and cash & points stays, all loyalty tiers receive discounts & savings on ‘local experiences’, this only applies to select cities (you can view a list of participating cities here). This benefit must be used within 7 days of check out.

Examples of the Go Free PLUS experience include tickets to family attractions, food tours, or adventure excursions.

What’s A Qualifying Night?

Wyndham is pretty generous with what they count as a qualifying night.

“Qualifying Night” is any of the following:

• A paid, stayed night during a Qualified Stay at a Participating Hotel (so long as the Qualified Stay has an average daily rate of at least $25 per night and satisfy other requirements as outlined here);
• A paid, stayed Go Fast Award night at a Go Fast Award Participating Hotel;
• A stayed Go Free Award night at a Participating Hotel.

As you can see, paid nights, award nights & cash and points bookings will all count as a qualifying night. Most programs will not count award nights.

Our Verdict

Wyndham are only introducing positive changes, there are no negatives to be found here. It’ll be interesting to see if they offer any sort of status level or bonus on their co-branded card with Barclaycard (although the sign up bonus is enough for two free nights which would count towards elite status).

I’m interested to see what the local experiences will be, there could be some good value to be had there for Diamond members depending on what they are. It’ll also be interesting to see how often suite and preferred room upgrades are actually applied and what type of rooms people are upgraded into. The other question most people will have, is are they going to offer any sort of status match?

What are your thoughts about these new changes by Wyndham?